1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a strobed comparator for a large common mode range.
2. Brief Description of the Related Technology
The current trend for mixed analog and digital integrated circuits is to integrate an increasing amount of functions into a single piece of silicon, and to reduce the overall system power dissipation by continually reducing the power supply voltage to the chip. These trends reduce the overall cost of the system, but increase the die area, power consumption, and noise floor for the silicon which increases hinder high performance analog circuits, hence creating a need for analog circuits that have improved signal to noise performance and able to operate at increasingly lower power supply voltage levels.
Decoupling the digital ground and power supply from the analog ground and power supply is necessary, but may not yield adequate dynamic range for high performance analog applications, such as CD audio products. The current trend for such products is to use over-sampled analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, which convert analog signals to digital signals, and vice versa. Also, the strobed comparator is a necessary part of these architectures. It provides the quantizing of the analog signal. Therefore, a real need exists for a comparator that has increased common mode range and increased dynamic range performance. Such a comparator will allow the entire analog circuitry to operate with increased signal swings, thus, increasing the overall dynamic range of the system.